Belgian king’s daughter fights for right to call herself a princess
Delphine Boël, whose mother had affair with ex-king Albert II, also wants to take her father’s surname
The surname, sure. But the title? Nope, titles move with and only with legitimacy.
At least that’s the sensible and English way of doing it, what J Foreigner gets up to is a bit more mysterious.
The traditional way around this problem was for the king to create new titles for his bastard children.
But for Salic Law, France would now be a member of the Commonwealth and who would want that?
A member of the Commonwealth perhaps, Mr B.
But doubtless not part of its integrated military command.
It’s more complicated in foreign because of morganatic marriages – your mother could have been married to the king but you still don’t get the title.
Perhaps that decoupling of inheritance from marriage means it’s easier to argue that the right to inherit a title is a matter of will so can be granted even if the parents aren’t married?
Quite so, m’Lud: and CANZFUK? Need one say more?
There’s already a perfectly good word to describe the offspring of an extra-marital affair which she is welcome to use.
Prefix it with “Royal” by all means.
Was there a female equivalent of, for instance, Fitzalbert?
I hear Spain is currently contending with some 5000 new claims to the throne.
@ dearime
Charlotte Jemima Henrietta Maria Fitzcharles perhaps?
Diana, Princess of Wales was descended from two of Charles’ illegitimate sons; Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Grafton and Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond.
Sibling: James II of England. Now there’s an interesting situation when Harry Sussex breeds.
PS: Though it was all change, of course, when Victoria came on the scene – especially with the doubts about her real parentage.
“Nope, titles move with and only with legitimacy.”
In the case of Belgium: According to Law.
Only those in the line of succession, *and* recognised by the state being as such, can carry the title. Which she definitely isn’t in, so….
Of course… Her claim is that she was born *before* that law was changed, so she has the right..
Personally, I think she forgets that with the law change back then a *lot* of aristo’s lost the right to their titles retroactively as well, so she may well not have a leg to stand on here. Even if she once had the right to the title, she does not have now, along with a sheaf of others.
Which was the point of that law anyway…
@ TMB
Don’t think “traditional” is quite the word: Charles II did that a lot but most other kings didn’t bother with titles for their bastards.
The surname, sure. But the title? Nope, titles move with and only with legitimacy.
At least that’s the sensible and English way of doing it, what J Foreigner gets up to is a bit more mysterious.
Perhaps the most wog series of sentences I’ll read this year.
If the English were truly sensible, there wouldn’t be titles in the first place.
What did Oscar Wilde say? You should study the Peerage. It is the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done.
DOOKFAOW: If the English were truly sensible, there wouldn’t be titles in the first place.
You quite like our titles over there, though, otherwise how to explain the attraction of Her Markleness and Her Poodle?